Teenagers who try vaping are more likely to become regular smokers, research suggests

CCTV captures woman's e-cig suddenly exploding in her handbag like a firework

A study of more than 44,000 school children in Canada found “strong evidence” that e-cigarettes are associated with taking up fags, contrary to recent studies that have suggested vaping helps people quit tobacco.

And Public Health England controversially endorsed e-cigarettes in their Stoptober campaign this month.

Researchers from the University of Waterloo in Canada followed 44,163 high school students for one year.

They put them into six groups; current daily smokers, occasional smokers, former smokers, experimental smokers, puffers and those who have never tried smoking.

Experts say vaping could be ‘re-normalising’ smoking among younger generations

Kids who had used e-cigarettes in the 30 days prior to the study were more likely to start smoking and continue smoking after a year.

Lead author David Hammond, of the school of public health and health systems at the university, said: “While our study provides strong evidence that e-cigarettes are associated with smoking initiation among youth, the association is unclear.

“E-cigarettes may help to re-normalise smoking, however, the association between e-cigarettes and smoking may simply reflect common factors rather than a causal effect: the same individual and social risk factors that increase e-cigarette use may also increase the likelihood of youth smoking.”

But the researchers noted that the prevalence of smoking decreased slightly over time – so the impact of e-cigarettes on youth smoking rates may still be minimal.